


Somethin' lonesome about you

by wanderingalonelypath



Series: Fair Game Week 2020 [4]
Category: RWBY
Genre: M/M, No Dialogue, kind of a stream of consciousness/character study type thing, qrow is v cynical, until he isn't so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23219014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingalonelypath/pseuds/wanderingalonelypath
Summary: Soulmates, Qrow always thought, were complete bullshit.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi
Series: Fair Game Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665913
Kudos: 45





	Somethin' lonesome about you

Soulmates, Qrow always thought, were complete bullshit.

Of all the literal magic in the world, Qrow thought that the concept of soulmates had to be one of the dumbest and most poorly-thought through. To begin with, not everyone even wanted a soulmate. Not everyone wanted someone to spend their life with, not everyone wanted to fall in love, not everyone wanted to get married and have 2.5 chubby little brats. He knew many a huntsman and huntress that were perfectly and completely happy without having someone waiting at home cooking them dinner and ironing their clothes.

(He used to try to convince himself that he was one of them, so he wouldn’t have to take the risk.)

Secondly, he thought if any two people were soulmates, it was his sister and Tai. They had almost every mushy trope going for them, from opposites attract to the angry and the ball of sunshine. He saw how his sister changed around him, how all her hard edges softened and the little delighted smiles she tried to hide slipped out whenever Tai did something stupid. Their love was the kind you wrote epics about, and for a second, Qrow thought he might have been wrong about this soulmate business.

And then Raven got pregnant, and it all went down from there.

Next thing he knew he had a niece and no sister, leaving a fractured family behind. Summer stepped up and Qrow stepped in and no one could say little Yang wasn’t loved, but Qrow could say confidently that he definitely didn’t believe in soulmates. Especially when Summer and Tai finally got their shit together and got together, because that only proved his point. Summer wasn’t Raven and Tai wasn’t the same as he used to be, and together they were different but they were also good.

And then Summer left on a mission, and never came back.

He loved Tai, he loved his nieces, his tiny little family that was still surviving against all odds but he still thought, without a doubt, that soulmates were still some saccharine fairytale made up for sappy romance books and to comfort the lonely masses.

And then, he met Clover.

And NO, this isn’t some cliche story where he meets Clover and realizes they’re perfect for each other or anything like that. In fact, at first, Clover and Qrow fit together like oil and water. That is, they didn’t.

Qrow is reserved, Clover is talkative. Qrow is cynical, Clover is optimistic. Clover is so damn arrogant some days Qrow wants to rip that stupid pin off of his jacket and carry it to the top of a mountain in his bird form just so he could hear it roll down the cliffs when he dropped it. They don’t fit together perfectly, not at all, and it’s this reason that takes so long for Qrow to finally give their relationship a chance.

(Because no matter how much Clover annoys and infuriates him, he can’t deny how utterly gone he is on the Ace Op.)

The beginning of their relationship is rocky, and even more so than most. If Qrow’s semblance wasn’t screwing things up then they were bickering over where to have dinner or Qrow was groaning at Clover’s lame jokes or stupid puns. They could never wash dishes together because Clover thinks he keeps the water too hot and Qrow thinks he keeps it too cold. The same went for showers. They didn’t like the same cereal, or tv shows, or even the same type of coffee.

On the outside, they shouldn’t have worked. They had nothing in common.

But somehow, after the first rocky couple of weeks, they started working.

It was like their gears finally lined up and their relationship settled into something steady, something strong. It started with Clover deciding to take his showers at night, so Qrow could shower in the morning. They alternated dish days. They did a switch off on date nights, so two weeks out of every month Qrow got to pick the restaurant and vice versa. Qrow memorized how Clover took his coffee and found himself making the second cup without even thinking about it. Clover started picking up little things Qrow needed but didn’t tell Clover about. A new whetstone. A replacement mag for Harbinger. Hell, he even managed to replace a button on Qrow’s vest when it was torn off in battle.

It took a while to realize that the reason things were suddenly going so well is that they were trying. They were putting the effort into adapting to the other person. Qrow was making an effort to fit Clover into his life, and he did the same. And sure it took a while, but at a certain point, Qrow realized the two of them had meshed together so well that he didn’t have to try anymore.

If you had told Qrow twenty years ago that he would find someone he would honestly call his soulmate, he would have laughed in your face. But now he knew differently. Soulmates weren’t your ‘other half’; they weren’t this perfect person wandering Remnant that slotted into all your sharp edges perfectly without even trying, no. Because you did have to try. Because soulmates weren’t found.

Soulmates were made.

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4!! I love the traditional concept of soulmates as much as the next person, but I have a soft spot in my heart for made-soulmates.


End file.
